English Children's Literature: 12月 2015

nibble(v.) \ˈni-bəl\ :

to eat slowly or with small bites

We nibbled on some cheese and crackers before dinner.

pain in the ass(n.)

a very annoying thing or person

That guy is a real pain in the ass.

Initiation is a rite of passage marking entrance or acceptance into a group or society. It could also be a formal admission to adulthood in a community or one of its formal components. In an extended sense it can also signify a transformation in which the initiate is 'reborn' into a new role.

Examples of initiation ceremonies might include Hindu diksha, Christian baptism or confirmation, Jewish bar or bat mitzvah, acceptance into a fraternal organization, secret society or religious order, or graduation from school or recruit training.

A person taking the initiation ceremony in traditional rites, such as those depicted in these pictures, is called an initiate.

Initiation ceremony, Korogo Village, Sepik River, Papua New Guinea, 1975. Franz Luthi

In literary criticism, a Bildungsroman (German pronunciation: [ˈbɪldʊŋs.ʁoˌmaːn]; German: "novel of formation / education / culture"), novel of formation, novel of education, or coming of age story (though it may also be known as a subset of the coming-of-age story) is a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood (coming of age), in which character change is extremely important.

Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship (German: Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre) is the second novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, published in 1795–96.

*Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship*
Title page of first edition
Author	Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Original title	Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre
Language	German
Genre	Bildungsroman, philosophical novel
Publisher	Johann Friedrich Unger (Berlin)
Publication date	1795–1796
Preceded by	Wilhelm Meister's Theatrical Calling (Wilhelm Meisters theatralische Sendung) (1777–1785)
Followed by	Wilhelm Meister's Journeyman Years (Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre) (1821–1829)

The Sorrows of Young Werther (German: Die Leiden des jungen Werthers) is an epistolary, loosely autobiographical novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, first published in 1774. A revised edition appeared in 1787. It was an important novel of the Sturm und Drang period in German literature, and influenced the later Romantic movement in literature.

*The Sorrows of Young Werther*
First print 1774
Author	Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Original title	Die Leiden des jungen Werthers
Country	Germany
Language	German
Genre	Epistolary novel
Publisher	Weygand'sche Buchhandlung, Leipzig
Publication date	29 September 1774, revised ed. 1787
Published in English	1779

Goethe, 24 years old at the time, finished Werther in six weeks of intensive writing in January–March 1774. It instantly put him among the first international literary celebrities, and remains the best known of his works to the general public. Towards the end of Goethe's life, a personal visit to Weimar became a crucial stage in any young man's Grand Tour of Europe.

Goethe portrait in profile

Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend. He is a scholar who is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a pact with the Devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. The Faust legend has been the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical works that have reinterpreted it through the ages.

"Faust" and the adjective "Faustian" imply a situation in which an ambitious person surrenders moral integrity in order to achieve power and success for a delimited term

Illustration by Harry Clarke for Goethe's Faust

In Greek mythology, Helen of Troy (Greek Ἑλένη Helénē, pronounced [helénɛː]), also known as Helen of Sparta, was the daughter of Zeus and Leda, and was a sister of Castor, Pollux, and Clytemnestra. In Greek myths, she was considered the most beautiful woman in the world. By marriage she was Queen of Laconia, a province within Homeric Greece, the wife of King Menelaus. Her abduction by Paris, Prince of Troy, brought about the Trojan War. Elements of her putative biography come from classical authors such as Aristophanes, Cicero, Euripides and Homer (both The Iliad and The Odyssey).

Helen and Menelaus: Menelaus intends to strike Helen; captivated by her beauty, he drops his sword. A flying Eros and Aphrodite (on the left) watch the scene. Detail of an Attic red-figurekrater, c. 450–440 BC (Paris, Louvre)

Sibling rivalry is a type of competition or animosity among siblings, whether blood related or not.

Siblings generally spend more time together during childhood than they do with parents. The sibling bond is often complicated and is influenced by factors such as parental treatment, birth order, personality, and people and experiences outside the family. Sibling rivalry is particularly intense when children are very close in age and of the same gender and/or where one or both children are intellectually gifted.

From a young age, children are sensitive to differences in parental treatment.

An arthropod (from Greek arthro-, joint + podos, foot) is an invertebrate animal having an exoskeleton (external skeleton), a segmented body, and jointed appendages. Arthropods form the phylum Arthropoda, and include the insects, arachnids, myriapods, and crustaceans. Arthropods are characterized by their jointed limbs and cuticle made of chitin, often mineralised with calcium carbonate. The arthropod body plan consists of segments, each with a pair of appendages.

Homicide occurs when one human being causes the death of another human being.

Homicides can be divided into many overlapping types, including murder, manslaughter, justifiable homicide, killing in war, euthanasia, and execution, depending on the circumstances of the death. These different types of homicides are often treated very differently in human societies; some are considered crimes, while others are permitted or even ordered by the legal system.

ab-: from : away : off

abandon (v.) \ə-ˈban-dən\ : to leave and never return to (something)

They abandoned the car on a back road.

keep someone/something from doing something

to prevent someone from doing something or prevent something from happening

These worries kept her from sleeping properly.

The troops withheld fire to keep the situation from escalating.

keep something from someone

to not tell someone something

I kept the news from him for a while.

容易搞混發音導致唸錯的單字

pirate	parrot
April	apple
fact	cat
fake	cake

secular(adj.) \ˈse-kyə-lər\ : not spiritual : of or relating to the physical world and not the spiritual world

Both secular and religious institutions can apply for the funds.

Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (French; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental novel À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time; earlier translated as Remembrance of Things Past), published in seven parts between 1913 and 1927. He is considered by many to be one of the greatest authors of all time.

Marcel Proust

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is an American children's novel written by author L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W. W. Denslow, originally published by the George M. Hill Company in Chicago on May 17, 1900. It has since been reprinted on numerous occasions, most often under the title The Wizard of Oz, which is the title of the popular 1902 Broadway musical as well as the iconic 1939 musical film adaptation.

A~O OZ

P~ Z

You are gifted.

gifted (adj.)

1. Endowed with great natural ability, intelligence, or talent:

a gifted child; a gifted pianist.

2. Revealing special talent:

a gifted rendition of the aria.

He is warm-hearted.

illustrate(v.) \ˈi-ləs-ˌtrāt also i-ˈləs-\

to explain or decorate a story, book, etc., with pictures

initial(adj.) \i-ˈni-shəl\

occurring at the beginning of something

George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950) was a Nobel Prize and Oscar-winning Irish playwright, critic and socialist whose influence on Western theatre, culture and politics stretched from the 1880s to his death in 1950. Originally earning his way as an influential London music and theatre critic, Shaw's greatest gift was for the modern drama. Strongly influenced by Henrik Ibsen, he successfully introduced a new realism into English-language drama. He wrote more than 60 plays, among them Man and Superman, Mrs. Warren's Profession, Major Barbara, Saint Joan, Caesar and Cleopatra, and Pygmalion. With his range from biting contemporary satire to historical allegory, Shaw became the leading comedy dramatist of his generation and one of the most important playwrights in the English language since the 17th century.

George Bernard Shaw

Pygmalion (play)

Pygmalion is a play by George Bernard Shaw, named after a Greek mythological character. It was first presented on stage to the public in 1913.

Professor of phonetics Henry Higgins makes a bet that he can train a bedraggled Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, to pass for a duchess at an ambassador's garden party by teaching her to assume a veneer of gentility, the most important element of which, he believes, is impeccable speech. The play is a sharp lampoon of the rigid British class system of the day and a commentary on women's independence.